Contemporary Art at the New Frontier

Steed Taylor: Celtic Knot for Joshua Tree

Steed Taylor, Celtic Knot for Joshua Tree, 2013

Steed Taylor, March 2013

Celtic Knot for Joshua Tree is a commemorative, cast on-site, concrete installation reflective of the landscape’s pale color and curvilinear forms. It sits 5 feet wide by 30 feet long by 18 inches high. The Celtic knot design references the infinite cycles of life, birth and rebirth. Bold yet subtly beautiful, it contains letters, notes, keys, photographs, small objects and other ephemera supplied by members of the local community which invoke their hopes, wishes and desires for themselves, the local community and the residency program.

This commemorative, concrete Celtic knot is an extension of Steed Taylor’s road tattoos, which are commemorative, site-specific, community-based, tattoo-inspired, public artworks on roads. These works explore the idea of a road being the skin of a community, thereby having a similar relationship to the public body as skin does to the private body. As people mark their skin for commemoration, communication or ritual, so then a road can be marked for the same reasons. Some recent road tattoos have been commissioned by Washington DC, Navy Pier/Chicago IL, North Carolina Museum of Art, Riverside Park in NYC and as far away as Beijing.